Cortland Opens Asia-Pacific Office
Cortland (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) has opened an Asia-Pacific regional office in Singapore that will cater to clients throughout the region. This new office will be managed by Andrew Threlfall, regional sales and business development leader.

Cortland said the new office will also allow companies from parent company Actuant Corp. (Butler, Wisconsin), such as Hydratight (West Midlands, England), to work together more closely on projects and services in and around the Asia-Pacific markets.
For more information, visit www.thecortlandcompanies.com.

InterMoor Opens New Morgan City Facility
InterMoor (Houston, Texas) announced in January the opening of a new 24-acre facility in Morgan City, Louisiana. The ISO 9001:2008-approved site contains two fabrication buildings, both with capabilities to design and produce comprehensive offshore mooring systems, subsea foundations and equipment. This facility has more than double the capacity of the company's former yard in Amelia, Louisiana.

The Morgan City site has nearly 1,300 feet of waterfront access with a nearly 13,700-square-foot multipurpose building for administrative and operations personnel. InterMoor is planning an official grand opening in March.
For more information, visit www.intermoor.com.

"This is a great opportunity," said Marlon Lewis, Satlantic president. "I am particularly excited that we are joining together now, as our work with WET Labs and Sea-Bird Electronics to build integrated physical and biogeochemical sensors for a variety of platforms is really taking off."

Day-to-day operations at Satlantic will not change, but Lewis said he expects the firms will work more closely on collaborative efforts.
For more information, visit www.satlantic.com.

Phoenix Delivers Saturation Diving System to U.S. Navy
Phoenix International Holdings Inc. (Largo, Maryland) recently delivered a portable, six-man, 1,000-foot-depth-capable saturation diving system to the U.S. Navy, the company announced in December.

The Saturation Fly-Away Diving System (SAT FADS) was procured by the Naval Sea System Command's Office of the Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) and delivered to the Naval Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU), Panama City.

SAT FADS will provide the Navy saturation diving capability to support salvage and recovery operations. The system is designed to be deployed using military or commercial aircraft and commercial over-the-road tractor trailers, and it can be installed on any suitable commercial vessel of opportunity. SAT FADS will support six divers to depths of 1,000 feet seawater for 30 days, Phoenix said.

SUPSALV and NEDU, which are currently conducting manned certification testing of the system, successfully deployed divers out of the diving bell pier-side in December.
For more information, visit www.phnx-international.com.

CSA International Inc. To Conduct PEIS for Mid- and South Atlantic
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) awarded CSA International Inc. (Stuart, Florida) an order to develop the first geological and geophysical (G&G) programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for areas in the Mid- and South Atlantic, the company announced in January.

The PEIS will be used to evaluate potential environmental effects of G&G activities, such as seismic surveys, to inform future decisions regarding oil, natural gas and renewable energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf in these Atlantic planning areas.

CSA said the PEIS will inform decision makers and the public of reasonable alternatives to avoid or minimize adverse impacts. The PEIS will also guide decisions about seismic research in the region and about where to allow oil and gas leases, placement of renewable energy infrastructure and development of non-energy mineral resources (e.g., sand and gravel), CSA said. A draft PEIS will be made available for public comment in 2011, and the final PEIS is expected to be completed in late 2012.
For more information, visit www.conshelf.com.

Harvey-Lynch to Promote, Sell Bluefin Robotics Products in GOM Market
Bluefin Robotics Corp. (Quincy, Massachusetts) announced in January a regional partnership with Harvey-Lynch Inc. (Strafford, Texas). Under the agreement, Harvey-Lynch will promote and sell Bluefin products in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida with a focus on the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) market.
For more information, visit www.bluefinrobotics.com.

BlueView Delivers High-Resolution Sonar To Hydroid for UUV System
BlueView Technologies (Seattle, Washington) recently delivered a new sonar to Hydroid Inc. (Pocasset, Massachusetts) as part of an Atlas Elektronik UK Ltd. (Winfrith Newburgh, England) project for the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD), BlueView announced in January.

The capability concept demonstrator project, conducted on behalf of the Defence Equipment & Support Programmes & Technology Group, will enable the MOD to understand the capabilities that commercial and military unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) technology could bring to future mine countermeasures operations, BlueView said.

A new 2.25-megahertz sonar, the MB2250, was integrated into a Hydroid REMUS 100 to provide high-resolution 2D and 3D imagery for side scan gap-filling and target identification in the region directly below the UUV typically associated with side scan coverage gaps.

The Atlas Elektronik Classiphi software fuses the BlueView gap-filling sonar data with the side scan sonar data gathered by the REMUS 100 to provide seamless imagery across the entire swath, BlueView said.
For more information, visit www.blueview.com.

Leaked State Department Cables Include Discussion on 'Black Swan' Case
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (Tampa, Florida) said in December that it was named in several U.S. State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks. One revelation included in the leaked cables suggests that the State Department offered special assistance in the "Black Swan" case to Spanish officials in exchange for assistance in acquiring a French painting confiscated by the Nazis during World War II.

"The possibility that someone in the U.S. government came up with this perfidious offer to sacrifice Odyssey, its thousands of shareholders and the many jobs created by the company in exchange for the return of one painting to one individual is hard to believe," said Greg Stemm, chief executive officer of the company.

The cables also indicate that the U.S. government provided confidential documentation on Odyssey to Spain, the company said. Stemm said in December that they were seeking additional information before taking any action.
For more information, visit www.shipwreck.net.

MSI Supplying Acoustic Sensors For Manatee Protection System at Canaveral Lock
Littleton, Massachusetts-based Materials Systems Inc. (MSI) is supplying the piezocomposite sonar sensors for use in the upgraded manatee protection system at the Canaveral Lock in Florida, the company announced in January.

The system is designed to safeguard manatees, which sometimes travel through the canal lock gates in search of food. Watercraft collisions are the leading human-related cause of manatee deaths, but lock gate accidents are second. Approximately 200 manatees have been crushed by Florida lock gates since 1974 because the turbid water often prevents gate operators from seeing the manatees, MSI said.

In 2000, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers funded development of a manatee protection system. Scientists and engineers at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) developed a system using a "ladder of sound beams" between two lock gates—one outfitted with sound emitters and the other with sound receivers—to detect the presence of manatees during gate closure.

When a manatee is detected, the system stops the gate from closing and keeps it open until the manatee passes. Numerous manatees have been saved by this system, which is now installed on several locks throughout Florida.

The system design has recently been upgraded with improved HBOI technology and MSI piezocomposite sensors to enhance manatee detection. The new system is being installed at the Canaveral Lock by Underwater Engineering Services Inc. (Fort Pierce, Florida) with funding from the Army Corps of Engineers. Additional locks will be upgraded over the next several months.
For more information, visit www.matsysinc.com.

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